Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Apex or Nadir of Creation/Evolution?

We, the human beings are supposed to be the apex of all creation - the most sophisticated, powerful, and intelligent creature to inhabit this planet. I wonder what our co-inhabitants think of us though. One often hears phrases like "fighting like an animal", "eating like a pig", etc. If animals could understand our words, they might actually believe we are giving compliments because:
  • When we aren't "fighting like animals", we simply use multi-million dollar machines to kill scores of people just because one group doesn't agree with the other on any number of "important" issues like religion, form of governance, territorial limits, etc. We fight wars for holding on to an inhabitable piece of land covered by a glacier and are proud to proclaim that it is the highest battle-field in the world. I was reading the other day about the Rwandan Genocide after seeing the movie Hotel Rwanda. Some figures were just staggering - almost a million people slaughtered in a matter of 100 days at a mind-numbing rate of about 10,000 people a day. It was not like they were bombed or anything but most of the killings were by machetes or hand-held guns. The rest of the world was just watching! And, we are supposed to be better than animals..huh!
  • When we aren't "eating like pigs", we spend tens of dollars to eat a "salad" in a fancy restaurant while a siginificant portion of humanity cannot even have a single meal a day. A pig's tongue by the way has about 15,000 taste buds compared to the modest 9,000 we humans are supposed to have.
  • We invent things that supposedly make our life better, then figure out there is a problem and then try and solve the problem by inventing a new thing along with associated problems.
  • We keep multiplying, pushing the other hapless creatures to smaller and smaller vestiges of land and then feel proud about protecting them with reserve forests. We even hunt defenceless animals for pleasure and to prove our macho credentials.
  • We consume and consume from nature and give nothing back except polluted air, land and water.
Imagine a court of all livings things on this planet that wants to try humanity for crimes against nature. I wouldn't want to be the lawyer representing humanity in front of that court!

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Man has not evolved one bit since he emerged from a cave. You can't change human nature despite what some pundits claim. We're no better than the ancient Mongols.

Aloha,

Jeff

9:07 AM  
Blogger Srinivasan said...

Thanks for your comment. But, I actually think man has evolved but only for the worse!

9:14 AM  

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